This is the prototype of the Atari 1053 disk drive. Inside all of its boards are hand soldered and are marked with #1 on them. Nowhere does it state the name Atari on it. The disk mechanism is a Tandon 360K drive. The unit is in a smooth unfinished plastic casing with no labelling over the rear ports and no silver Atari 1050 strip across the top of the case.
Recently the Atari Historical Society staff received almost 20 internal Atari Engineering logbooks from Atari, Inc dating from 1981-1984. Two log books mention the design of a new Atari 1053 double-sided/double density disk drive. Also after a conversation with one of Atari's former Home Computer Division managers, it was discovered that Atari engineers were using a "slush" fund of left over money from previous projects and were working on a side by side dual Atari 1050 unit with 2 Atari 1050's set-up into an XL styled case that looked very similar to an Apple ][ dual drive. As of yet, the whereabouts of this in-house prototype are unknown. As always, the Atari Historical Society is searching out of the far corners of the world in search of this and any and all other Atari projects.
The Atari 1053 was among several proposed new disk drives Atari was looking
into developing. Also Atari was looking to severe ties with
Tandon due to the poor reliability of its mecahnisms, also it is noted
from several notes from engineering meetings that Tandon was ignoring recommendations
from Atari on fixs and updates to the 1050 drive line.
Atari was looking at Sanyo, Sony, Hitachi, Seagate and several other companies
for 5.25", 3.5" and even 3" drive mechanisms. Several new drives
were proposed including:
The Atari 1053 Double Sided/Double Density
Drive Drive
The Atari 1055 3.5" disk drive (prototypes
exist of these units, the case design was done by Tom Palecki)
The Atari 1056 Disk Drive
The Atari 1057 Squest 3.9" removable disk
drive
The Atari 1058 Very Low Cost Disk Drive
(Actually Engineering notes and meeting
notes to follow)